


I know Satan's daughter personally.

by finch (afinch)



Category: Basic Eight - Daniel Handler
Genre: Dark Humor, Mental Institution, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Unreliable Narrator, canon written by Lemony Snicket, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:51:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's fifteen years after the events of Flannery Culp's disastrous senior year. Her appeal for release from the psychiatric hospital she was remanded to just two years into her sentence (and three months after her book came out) has just been denied, throwing the case back into the limelight. Doctor Tert and the Winnie Moprah Show are after the remaining members of The Basic Eight. Flannery takes this time to blog about events from ten years past, when Natasha inexplicably returns. </p><p>  <b>Vocabulary:</b><br/><b>DISASTROUS    PSYCHIATRIC    REMANDED    LIMELIGHT    BLOG    INEXPLICABLY</b></p><p>  <b>Study Questions:</b><br/><b>1. In order to get a story read, a work of AO3 fic now has to be condensed into a few pithy sentences to show up under summary before the main fic can be read. Does this seem right to you? Why or why not?</b></p><p>  <b>2. Really, the only way to tell if a fic is any good is to click on the link for yourself, wait for it to load, and read it all the way through. Don't you think? Why or why not?</b></p><p>  <b>3. If you still need to set the record straight, is it okay to do it? Why or why not?</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartkeepingopenhouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartkeepingopenhouse/gifts).



It's terrible that this is all in the news again. Let me just say, 15 years later, I never expected it to be like this. I certainly didn't expect technology to progress past a simple electronic-screened typewriter that the earlier computers were. Now the entire world can come together and pick apart The Basic Eight and try to find answers as to where it all went wrong. The Other Seven can be bombarded by phone calls, Facebook messages, Tweets - really moronic on that one world. No one cares what you have to say, even if you level it with brevity - and other things I haven't yet discovered in my little pod. 

Like I was saying, I didn't expect it to be like this. All I was doing was simply asking to be released back into society. I'd like at least something of my life, and I think I've got a bit of it to look forward to. 40 is the new 30 and who really wants to relive their 20's? I'm better now, and I think that should count for something.

Doctor Tert, that undermining little bitch. Oh, bitch is a harsh word, I'm not sure I can say that - there's so much I'm not allowed to say without being labelled crazy - but she is. You were all there, for her lousy epilogue to my book, where she pretended to know what she was talking about. 

You know Satanic Cults have been debunked now, right? There never was such a thing. We were all just _children_ and the media took it and made it a big deal, and even now, after the debunking, when I ask to be released back into society, the media is all over it. Where did we go wrong so badly, they ask again. And again. Again. Listen. The children are still coming, they are still there, and look, are you reading the news? It's clearly a lot worse. They only paid attention to Roewer because of Dr Tert and that little earring of mine. Of her determination to find Satanism in our whole schools. As it turns out, the only thing we had to be scared of was ourselves. 

Still determined to make her mark, she's the one who sealed the nail in my coffin here. She testified against my release, bringing up my time with Natasha, beautiful sweet Natasha, who came back just for me, when I was at a really low point. Look, she's gone now, and I think it should count for something that I was the one who asked her to leave. But that's neither here nor there. A separate blog post I think. Again, blog. What a dumb word, world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Vocabulary:  
>  BREVITY    TWEET    DEBUNK    UNDERMINE**
> 
> **Study Questions:**
> 
> **1\. Is Flan's disdain of Doctor Tert displaced? Why or why not? Think about the people who insert themselves into your life without knowing the whole story before answering. Especially the people who, as you've learned from my book, have their minds made up beforehand. Is it right they stay in your life and make major life decisions for you?**
> 
> **2\. Is it wrong that Flan decided to let Natasha visit her? What does loneliness look like? Have you ever gone back to something comfortable when you've been lonely. If not, why are you lying? Think carefully about this before answering.**
> 
> **3\. What's worse? The lies we tell to everyone else, or the lies we tell ourselves when we know no one is watching? Yes, I'm talking about you.**
> 
> **4\. When have you gone back to something you shouldn't have, even years later? Do you think your sanity deserves to be questioned because of it? Be honest.**


	2. Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility -George Orwell, aka Eric Arthur Blair

_Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility_  
     -George Orwell, aka Eric Arthur Blair 

 

**Tuesday December 22nd**

I promised I would write about Natasha, and here we are. I'm afraid I don't have any artifacts for you this time around, being stuck where I am. I could insert all the physical therapy arts and crafts they make us do, but they tend to keep most of mine. Even now, I'm too edgy for them. What does it mean, Flan, they ask me, and no answer I ever give is correct. What does it mean, they ask me, and I ask them back, what do you say it means? It means that. They don't like that either. 

One day, there we are, making our emotions out of glitter and pipe cleaners (PT is not for the intellectually sound, especially not when you've done it for years on end) when Nurse Rached walks in - that is not her real name, I've changed it to protect her indiscretions - smiles at us, and tells us that we have a new guest on our ward. Guest is the wrong word. Prisoner is more like it, and I stand up and say so. Nurse Becky - I didn't change her name or anyone elses - tells me to sit down and behave while writing on her notepad. She writes a lot in her notepad about me. They all do. 

Then in walks Natasha. 

"This is Natasha Hyatt" Nurse Ratched says, and my heart drops. Something springs alive in my mind, something that has been missing for about five years. She still looks beautiful, she looks like she hasn't aged a day. She's gorgeous, and looks at me, finger to her lips, and I understand. I don't let on that this is my Natasha. She sits next to George and Frankie, across from me, and shyly takes some pipecleaners. I've never seen Natasha be shy before. 

We don't say anything, Natasha and I, she creating a scene out of the pipe cleaners, one that looks strikingly familiar. When PT hour is almost over, she slides it across to me, winking. 

Nurse Becky walks over, "Flan, what is this?" This is not the lurid, impossible to understand pictures of PT past. This is something honest, something tangible they can put on their little notepads about me.

"Isn't it obvious?" I say. "It's the parking lot at Roewer. The red is V____'s car (TRY CENSORING A BLOG, V____) even though it wasn't red. It has Adam inside."

Nurse Becky's voice is careful, and steady (yes, careful and steady), "What does it mean, Flan?" 

I look briefly at Natasha, who beautifully whispers the answer. I'm surprised Nurse Becky doesn't hear her, "It means I've been thinking about what happened. What I did, and how red everything is." 

I almost giggle repeating Natasha's words, but I manage to hold it in. 

"Okay, may I keep this?" Nurse Becky asks, and that's all that's said on it, for today. 

Later, I see her talking to Nurse Ratched, and Nurse Brian, and Doctor Kennedy. They are all looking at me as they talk, and I try to slink down, hide behind my book (Love on a Noon Lake), and eventually they stop. 

Later, in my room, getting away from everyone, Natasha slips in. 

"You can't be here!" I hiss at her. "They'll find you out, and then I'll be in trouble."

She looks at me, eyebrow only half-raised, like she's amused by my panic. "Don't be silly, Flan-" and there, she says my name like a dessert, and everything is sweet and sugary and I can't see straight, "Don't you see? You can't get into any trouble here."

"I'm _here _because of you, _Natasha_ ," I remind her. "After what you did, what I did. And then there was that unfortunate incident that got me sent _here_ instead of staying at the prison, and I'll be here until I die."__

__She laughs it off, "But don't you see? You can do anything you want. You never have to compromise everything we vowed to be. Haven't you heard what Kate's up to?"_ _

__Kate. I haven't heard about Kate in years. I haven't asked. After she got sent to Yale, I stopped paying attention._ _

__"She doesn't have much of a life, she really disavowed everything we worked so hard for," Natasha says matter of factly, looking at her nails. "Do you happen to have a nail file?"_ _

__I want to scream, I want to tell her to get out. I want to tell her that after many years of actual therapy, I have learned that while I am not a Satantist, I have issues with reality. They give it a name I really won't type here, it's harsh, and means my head isn't ever really my own._ _

__I cannot tell Natasha anything, she is laying on my bed now, flicking through last weeks' novel, The Righteous Rake, which was very good and I've read about sixteen times now. "You really need to enrich your horizons," she says._ _

__I sit weakly in my chair, the chair Doctor Kennedy sits in most of the time, because I insist on meeting somewhere comfortable, and she likes to accomodate me. "Natasha," I say finally, "Natasha, why are you here?"_ _

__She giggles, "Isn't it obvious? Because you need me. I come whenever you need me."_ _

__"You're not, you're - you're supposed to be - you're only in-" I try, and fail, to explain it to her. Isn't it true? She's only in my head? But she's on the bed. I wonder why it's taken her five years to show up._ _

__"Oh, the medicine," Natasha says, as if she's read my mind, which she probably has. "They think the Haldol is making you too numb. Your parents, not Emmett. He wanted to keep you on it, but agreed to see how taking you off it would change things. I'd say after last PT it's going well."_ _

__I rub my arm where the Haldol shots go in, like clockwork, every morning. Saline? They are giving me saline now? I don't know how to handle that. They are lying to me, everyone in here, about why I am here, and how I am doing, and what I am making. Natasha is looking at me curiously, like she's not sure what she wants to say. Natasha is never unsure, and it makes me feel unsteady on my feet, even though I am sitting._ _

__"Natasha," I say, and everything cracks._ _

__**Wednesday December 23rd** _ _

__V___, you are going to have to get over this eventually. I don't care if you're some fancy hedge fund manager or whatever. Presidential candidate wannabe, it's all going to come out eventually. You might as well just embrace it. The others have. Gabriel still visits. Of course Gabriel still visits. Gabriel, the opposite of Natasha, the one who grounds me. Gabriel, I mean, I think. Gabriel grounds me in this place. But Natasha has always been my rock, and you're not reading this to hear about some normal kid who got swept up in the crazy of his friend. Or maybe you are. Let's go to Waukesha, WI for a moment, where there is a girl, just like me, only smaller, who is facing a terrible fate. They want to actually put her in prison, over Slenderman, over being 12 and never once in control of your own mind. I understand how terrifying that is. The other girl, though? The clearly-non-insane one? She gets what she gets. You don't get to be a follower and then claim some sort of mental deficiency because of it. Only the person still trapped, but in a different way, gets to say that._ _

__I'm surprised Fancy Doctor Tert isn't on the Winnie Moprah Show, talking about how the Internet is evil and we need to protect children from it. I can tell you, they certainly haven't blamed her parents for nearly stabbing a classmate to death. If she had been just a little older, I guarantee, she would have succeeded. Maybe it's good she got found out so young. Good that there wasn't any senseless death. Adam was always going to be dating Kate. I write that down every night, just so I remember, but during the night, it gets all twisted up. I write that down, every night, except when Natasha was on the ward._ _

__There we are, in therapy with Doctor Kennedy, and Natasha hiding in the bathroom to listen. I should have known then, let's not forget you have the luxury, like last time, of knowing the ending and what was to happen. I had to take it as it came and make sense of it after the fact._ _

__"Let's discuss your art," says Doctor Kennedy, and I nod. She pulls out Natasha's first piece, the parking lot, and all the others after that. They spill out across the table, everything that is Adam and what happened - all my guilt, dripping across each page._ _

__She's watching me, Doctor Kennedy, to see how I feel. To see how I react. I hate when she does this. I feel like no matter what I get the answers wrong, even when I'm lying and trying to get them right._ _

__"It happened so fast," I finally say. Doctor Kennedy doesn't make that disapproving look she always makes, so I keep going. "It happened so fast, and there was so much emotion and things - just everything from the party - and it was so fast and it all made so much sense, you know?"_ _

__Did she know? I'm watching her now, to see if she does know. She doesn't, I can tell, but she nods anyway._ _

__"Can you tell me what happened so fast?" she asks, and it's' the way she asks it, calmly and patiently, like she's perfectly comfortable with the inevitable silence that will come as I try to sort the words out correctly. Some therapists will get weirded out and try to talk for you. The ones before Doctor Kennedy did that, but she has no problem with sitting in silence for an hour after she's asked a question. It's nice to not have to know the answers right away. I wish I'd had that luxury with The Basic Eight, but that was never my role - that could never have been my role._ _

__So I tell her, while Natasha tuts from the bathroom. I ignore Natasha for the time being, but it's getting harder. Right when I get to the nail file, Natasha coughs loudly, and I ask to go to the bathroom. Doctor Kennedy lets me._ _

__I turn on the water, so Doctor Kennedy can't hear us talking. "Natasha!" I say, in barely more than a whisper, wishing I could hiss better in a whispered tone._ _

__"You are doing beautifully," she whispers back. She has a gleam in her eyes, a scheme in mind, and I know I'm getting sucked in, but I can't stop myself._ _

__"What happens next?" I ask her._ _

__"Just keep going," she says, I'll let you know when you need to change it up. Keep giving them my PT art, they love that shit. It means you're getting better." It should have occurred to me then, but it didn't, that Natasha cursed. She wasn't elegant and refined, she was a mess, just like me, and she was scrabbling just to stay alive anyway that she could, and I should have realised and I didn't and that's on me. That's the only part that's on me._ _

__"I want to get better," I say, louder than I mean to. Natasha frowns, disappointed. I feel guilty for disappointing her. I never want to disappoint her._ _

__Doctor Kennedy is knocking at the door, "Flannery? Are you ok?"_ _

__I give Natasha a look before flushing the toilet. "I'm fine, Doctor Kennedy."_ _

__**Thursday December 24th** _ _

__Doctor Tert has been on the Winnie Moprah Show, because of course she has. The internet is a "dark and wicked place," but she's only copying what the police chief said, because that woman doesn't have an original thought in her head. You know she asked to see me, you read the book, and her disgusting epilogue. She was wrong, Flora Fucking Habstat didn't put a stop to it before it was too late. Adam is still dead, it's still too late. Funny how that got written out of her perfect narrative. What she didn't tell you is that she only wanted to see me so she could say she had and I had confessed that I was a Satanist to her, not just filling in a joke on some silly school survey. Doctor Tert likes to believe whatever it is the convention of the moment to believe about what is wrong with today's youth. With Slender Man, she doesn't have to go along with very much, it's all written out there, no interviews needed. A perfect little package._ _

__Dear Doctor Tert, you are a cancer. Leave those children alone. Leave me alone. I know you rang the PC looking for me after my blog posts from the past two days and Nurse Brian told you to go away. I told him to say that. I'm so glad he listened._ _

__Speaking of these blog posts, I'm pleased to see readership has gone up as highly as it has. Who knew the secrets you didn't know from ten years ago would prove to be so in-demand?_ _

__Natasha and I sit on my bed, like we have been for the past four weeks, talking. We talk about everything now, PT, and Doctors Kennedy and Emmett (that's his first name, _he_ lets me call him by his first name, unlike Doctor Kennedy, who won't even tell me hers. I don't know what she thinks I'd do with it) and how much better I'm getting. _ _

__Remorse. I have remorse and guilt and they are pleased by this._ _

__Natasha giggles, "You don't have remorse. You never had any remorse."_ _

__I don't doubt if that's not true._ _

__"I do feel guilty."_ _

__"Of course you do," she says, rolling her eyes. She's wearing my purple shirt today. The one that's normally in my drawer, that I don't wear because some of the nurses like to wear purple, and I don't want to confuse anyone, especially myself. She insisted I wear the lighter purple one, so we can match, just like we always used to._ _

__She moves on quickly from discussions of my guilt. "Isn't Gabriel coming today?"_ _

__It's the day before Christmas. Gabriel has been coming the day before Christmas for the past four years. He will come this year, too. I don't know how he'll react to Natasha. I don't know yet if I'll tell him about Natasha. Of course I'll tell him. He is my link to the outside world. He is, unlike my lying parents who lie about my treatment and how much they love me, honest with me when I ask him questions. Besides, I think Doctor Kennedy likes him._ _

__"He looooves you," Natasha croons. I think of the picture, the one sold, of him wating for me with a rose. Jealous - he was apologizing for being jealous and suddenly, the one black boy in a billion miles of Roewer is splashed across the tabloids. I don't think any of us thought it could end up like this. He loves me, yes, but not like he did when were 18. I think of his eyes, bright and red, asking me about Adam. He never asks me about Adam anymore._ _

__**Later** _ _

__He is shy, he is always shy since everything happened._ _

__"How much trouble was the photo?" I ask him, and he looks at me quizzically, like he's not sure exactly what I'm asking._ _

__"It was fine, Flannery," he says, which is what he always says. He looks Blacker, is that mean to say? as he's aged. Mid-20's now, Professional Barista. He went to Acting School, or was a Drama Major or something, same end result._ _

__"It was fine, Flannery," he says again, like he's tired of being asked about before. He is tired about being asked about before, he likes to focus on the now and where I am in my life._ _

__"How are you?" he asks, and for a second - just a brief one - his eyes wide and bright. He genuinely cares. He may be the only one of the Basic Eight who did. Besides Natasha._ _

__"Do you want a coffee?" I ask instead. He's allowed coffee. I'll have to ask specially for it. I flag down Nurse Brian before Gabriel can answer. In that time, Natasha saunters over to the table and sits down. Gabriel raises an eye at her, but doesn't say anything._ _

__"Black," she says to Nurse Brian. "Gabriel has a thing with onomatopoeia for taste and it's effectiveness."_ _

__Gabriel smirks at that. "You almost sounded like old-Flannery there."_ _

__"Only almost?" I say, forgetting that it was Natasha who said it, and not me._ _

__He shrugs, "Only almost, but it's okay. You don't have to be. You shouldn't be."_ _

__I shouldn't be. I don't know what to say to that. I shouldn't be. Shouldn't be what - who I am?_ _

__"Would you stop visiting if I were?" I ask. My voice is trembling. I don't realise that I'm shaking until Nurse Brian comes back over._ _

__"Are we okay over here?" he asks in his booming voice. I don't answer. I stare at Gabriel, and then at Natasha, who has her finger to her lips. She always has her finger to her lips. Like in the photograph, you know the one. Kate, leaning on an armrest rather than sitting on the couch like a normal human being, placing herself (as always) above us and looking a little smug, V___, fingering her non-existent pearls. Douglas and Gabriel, having a conversation about me on the couch, Lily between Douglas and me as always. Douglas looking impatiently into the camera, ready to finish whatever it is he was saying. Gabriel squished at the end of the couch, looking uncomfortable. Jennifer Rose Milton, beautiful as always, standing at the couch. And Natasha, one long finger between her lips and batting her eyes at me._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Vocabulary**
> 
> **CENSOR    HALOPERIDOL    INEVITABLE     SCRABBLING     DISGUST     REMORSE     ONOMATOPOEIA**
> 
> **Study Questions:**
> 
> **1\. Are there some words that are better with suffixes? Name five.**
> 
> **2\. When in this blog post did you realise Natasha was a figment of Flannery's imagination? No cheating. Have you ever had a figment of your imagination come to life? (If you have not, pretend you have). Would you rat them out in front of your old ~~boy~~ friend and a psychiatric nurse?**
> 
> **3\. Do you think it's wise to have a self-confessed felony murdereress write a blog? Even if she's locked up in a secure mental health treatment facility and isn't making any money off said blog? Do you think it's okay that her Doctors are telling her she can't do it anymore, even though what she's writing about is many years after the fact? Even if she doesn't get to finish the story? Do you think that's fair?**
> 
> **4\. You have got to be kidding me.**


	3. Guest Blogger, Dr. Tert

**Thursday, December 24**

Hello, Doctor Eleanor Tert. I hope you're not turned off by Flannery's crass words about me. For those of you unfamiliar, yes, during the 90's when there was plenty of evidence, given to us by the students themselves, we thought them members of a Satanic cult. Flannery still has never explained why she collected all those trinkets from her friends, and from Adam State - you remember Adam State right? Flannery just glosses over him, but she murdered him. And then felt the need to describe it in grisly detail, revealing that her mind is perfectly sound.

She thought she could play a long con, and completely lose it over my writing her last epilogue which was the first incident to get her reviewed by a State-sanctioned psychiatrist. Then there was that unfortunate incident with the nurse that really sealed her fate. She wanted to stay in there, I'm going to make sure she does. Flannery Culp is a danger to society. Yes, her stories are lurid and fanatical, which is how you know there's little to no truth about them. 

She's writing these stories based on her own memory, not even notes, which is, as you know from her first attempt, deeply flawed. The doctors and nurses (and myself) were all aware of Flannery's re-imagining of Natasha, which conveniently came at a time when there was discussion to move her back to the prison, where she belongs. Sadly, Flannery was able to convince a judge to re-open her trial and she's now officially Not Guilty by means of Insanity. 

Flannery Culp needs to spend the rest of her life locked up. She is a proven danger to others, she is a danger to herself, not just in action, but in word. It's regrettably that her blog has to be taken down, but it's for the best.

I do wish she would speak with me.


End file.
